Day: August 10, 2017

There was a very large and enthusiastic turnout for the launch of To Raise the Fallen at Hodges Figgis in Dublin this evening. Many thanks to all the staff at Veritas and at Hodges Figgis and particular thanks to Ronan McGreevy for his very fine words about Fr Doyle this evening. Thanks also to all those who attended, and it was especially nice to meet people who read this site and who came along.

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The Catechism of the Catholic Church has the following to say about the virtue of charity:

1822 Charity is the theological virtue by which we love God above all things for his own sake, and our neighbour as ourselves for the love of God.

1823 Jesus makes charity the new commandment. By loving his own “to the end,” he makes manifest the Father’s love which he receives. By loving one another, the disciples imitate the love of Jesus which they themselves receive. Whence Jesus says: “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love.” And again: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.”

1824 Fruit of the Spirit and fullness of the Law, charity keeps the commandmentsof God and his Christ: “Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love.”

1825 Christ died out of love for us, while we were still “enemies.” The Lord asks us to love as he does, even our enemies, to make ourselves the neighbor of those farthest away, and to love children and the poor as Christ himself.

The Apostle Paul has given an incomparable depiction of charity: “charity is patient and kind, charity is not jealous or boastful; it is not arrogant or rude. Charity does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong, but rejoices in the right. Charity bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

1826 “If I . . . have not charity,” says the Apostle, “I am nothing.” Whatever my privilege, service, or even virtue, “if I . . . have not charity, I gain nothing.” Charity is superior to all the virtues. It is the first of the theological virtues: “So faith, hope, charity abide, these three. But the greatest of these is charity.”

1827 The practice of all the virtues is animated and inspired by charity, which “binds everything together in perfect harmony”; it is the form of the virtues; it articulates and orders them among themselves; it is the source and the goal of their Christian practice. Charity upholds and purifies our human ability to love, and raises it to the supernatural perfection of divine love.

1828 The practice of the moral life animated by charity gives to the Christian the spiritual freedom of the children of God. He no longer stands before God as a slave, in servile fear, or as a mercenary looking for wages, but as a son responding to the love of him who “first loved us”:

If we turn away from evil out of fear of punishment, we are in the position of slaves. If we pursue the enticement of wages, . . . we resemble mercenaries. Finally if we obey for the sake of the good itself and out of love for him who commands . . . we are in the position of children.

Where does one start in discussing the virtue of charity in the life of Fr Doyle? An entire book would be needed to do justice to this theme. In fact, such a book does exist – it is the classic biography of Fr Doyle written by Alfred O’Rahilly and published about 90 years ago. This book is a detailed description of Fr Doyle’s intense love of God, and the manifold ways that that love spilled over into his love for others. Many people have read it and been inspired; if you do not have a copy, you will find a link to a site that sells them in the side bar on the right.

There is so much to say on this theme, but I am going to be very brief. But first, an important distinction. Loving someone is not the same as liking them. We are called to love others. This is an act of the will. We are not called to like them. Far too often we confuse the two, and we reduce Christian love to mere “niceness”. Yes, it is good to be nice to others. Courtesy is certainly an important human virtue that is sadly lacking in my quarters today. But these are not the same as love. True love wants the best for the other, even when we do not actually like them. A profoundly evil man may still love his family. Speaking loosely, even a dog may, in a certain instinctive sense, “love” his pack. But it takes the theological virtue of charity to love everyone, even those who hate us. Unfortunately, few of us reach, or sustain, this level of charity, and our society, and the Church, is poorer for it.

Fr Doyle lived a very ordinary childhood in Dalkey, County Dublin. He loved games and sports and pranks. But there was one thing that distinguished him – he went out of his way to show kindness to his poor neighbours. He painted their houses, bought them presents, brought food from his home, assisted the lonely at the hour of death. As Alfred O’Rahilly says, he constituted himself into a one man St Vincent de Paul Conference. This charity, which distinguished him as a child, would be the hallmark of his entire life.

There are so many charitable episodes in his life that one could reflect on. His care for the boys he worked with in the Jesuit schools; his concern for souls while he was a missionary, even to the point of hunting out those who had been away from the Church for many years or waiting to find sailors coming into port late into the night; his care for the street prostitute Fanny Cranbush; his voluminous spiritual direction by mail that entailed many hours of work; his fundraising for abandoned African children; his concern for those struggling to find their vocation in life; his founding of the Poor Clare convent in Cork City; his concern for workers and his desire to establish a retreat house for them. And all of this before we get to the period of his supreme acts of love – his almost daily self-sacrifice for his soldiers in the war, culminating in his death while rescuing some fallen officers.

Fr Doyle knew what he was getting into during the war, and foresaw that he might well die as a martyr of charity, imitating Christ by offering his life to save others. As he wrote in a letter not long after volunteering to become a military chaplain:

What I am going to tell you now may pain you. I have volunteered for the Front as Military Chaplain, though perhaps I may never be sent. Naturally I have little attraction for the hardship and suffering the life would mean; but it is a glorious chance of making the ‘ould body’ bear something for Christ’s dear sake. However, what decided me in the end was a thought that flashed into my mind when in the chapel: the thought that if I get killed I shall die a martyr of charity and so the longing of my heart will be gratified. This much my offering myself as chaplain has done for me: it has made me realise that my life may be very short and that I must do all I can for Jesus now.

There is one particular episode that I want to draw attention to, for every time I think of it, I am struck speechless. Fr Doyle worked alongside a medical doctor called Dr Buchanan for many months during the war. They often shared the same quarters. On one occasion, when the doctor was sick and there were no blankets to place on the damp dug-out floor, Fr Doyle lay face down in the damp and made the doctor lie on his back, so that at least the sick doctor would get some rest.

What can one say when confronted with such selfless love of others?

Well, in fact, there is one thing that can be said, and it is this – such love, especially for strangers, is not natural. It is not natural because it is supernatural. Fr Doyle’s love for his neighbours was fundamentally based upon, and nourished by, the great love of his life – his love for Jesus Christ. And so today we will conclude with some words from Fr Doyle on loving God with our whole heart.

We must love God with our whole heart. Can He be loved otherwise? Is it too much that a finite heart should love infinite Beauty? I fail in this wholehearted love if I keep back anything from Him, if I am determined not to pass certain limits as proof of my love, if I absolutely refuse to sacrifice certain things which He asks, if I refuse to follow the grace which is impelling me on. It is not necessary to imagine extraordinary circumstances in the future; there is presumption in this; we must not count on ourselves as St. Peter did. Also there is a danger of despondency in such imaginings, when we do not feel capable of such tests of love. Examine the present.

We must love God with our whole strength. If I love God with all the strength that grace gives me now, this grace is increased by each act of love, so that I should from day to day love Him more. Love for a creature is strongest at its commencement, it becomes weaker, it ends in weariness and disgust. It is quite the contrary with divine love. Weak in the beginning, it grows as we come to know God better, as we taste Him more, as we approach Him more familiarly and enjoy His presence more intimately.

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Fr Doyle, like all of us, had to struggle against his defects. We see an especially vivid example of his struggle in private diary notes written on this day 100 years ago (10 August 1916 – 1 year before his death and one year before the “Behold the Man” episode reported in an earlier posting today).

For the past couple of days I have been very unhappy, in bad humour, with peace of soul quite gone, owing to certain arrangements about billets etc which I dislike. This has come from fighting against God’s will. I know He wants me to take every detail of my life as coming from His hand; and I cannot bring myself to submit. I get irritated and annoyed over trifles e.g. the server signing the bell at Mass too long, my men coming into my room in the morning for my boots etc etc. I feel Jesus urges me to these things: (1) to take every single detail of my life as done by Him; (2) lovingly to accept it all in the spirit of immolation that my will and wishes may be annihilated; (3) never to complain or grumble even to myself; (4) to try and let everyone do with me as he pleases, looking on myself as a slave to be trampled on…If I kept these rules I should never be annoyed or upset about anything and should never lose my peace of soul.

Consider the stress of the life Fr Doyle was living and the sights he had already witnessed at this stage of the war. We can hardly blame him for feeling bit irritable! There are some lessons that we can take from this.

Firstly, we all have to struggle. Those who are advanced in the spiritual life have to struggle just like the rest of us. Holiness, at every stage, requires struggle. Any spirituality that denies this or ignores it is a spirituality that is not based on the Gospel. Some people will cope with the struggle better than others, but the struggle will always be there.

Secondly our struggle will primarily be against our dominant defect. We all have one particular weakness that drags us down. We will have many sins, but one particular sin that will lead us into other faults. For some it might be pride. Perhaps this was the case with St Vincent de Paul. Other struggled with sensuality – St Augustine and St Margaret of Cortona come to mind. But with Fr Doyle it seems, on my reading of his writing at least, to have been a certain tempestuousness – a quick temper and strong passions. Perhaps this was also the dominant defect of St Peter. It was certainly the case with St Francis de Sales, who, despite having this defect, is known as the gentleman saint, because he consistently fought this defect and overcome it significantly. Perhaps it is inevitable that somebody with a strong will has to fight against this defect of temper – the two probably go hand in hand. This battle against the dominant defect is fundamental to our spiritual life. If we want to be holy, and we want a practical programme for sanctity, then the battle against our own unique fault will be central to this. For those who want more information on this, see the works of the renowned expert Fr Garrigou-Lagrange on this topic http://www.christianperfection.info/tta34.php

Thirdly, despite how Fr Doyle felt internally, I suspect that nobody around him knew of his interior struggle. Those who knew Fr Doyle always spoke of how gentle and meek and mild he was. He was a source of strength, serenity and calm for others, especially in the most stressful situations. Tough Irish soldiers flocked to him – they would not flock to a man who was irritable and highly strung. Despite the interior trials Fr Doyle felt, he managed to surmount them. How rarely many of us manage to do this!

The final lesson here is that we must never give up! To give up is to fail. To stop advancing is to fall back. And if we fail, if we fall or are tempted, we get back up and begin again. We never get tired of beginning again, and as Pope Francis keeps saying, God never gets tired of forgiving us, rather it is we who get tired of asking for forgiveness, we who get tired of beginning again. Fr Doyle kept this struggle going always, and he kept it up with specific resolutions. He didn’t tell himself to merely be “nice” to others. Rather, like a good soldier trained in the practical spirituality of St Ignatius, he had specific resolutions that were aimed at rooting out his defect. We will always face this struggle against our passions and against our main defect. But the examples of those who, like Fr Doyle, fought tenaciously against their defects, are a source of inspiration to us.

To conclude, the words of St Benedict may be a source of comfort for all who find the struggle hard:

If a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation, whose entrance cannot but be narrow. For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love.

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We return today to Fr Doyle’s narrative, and get some glimpse of the horror of war, and the comfort that the presence of a priest can bring to the dying.

Of particular note is his reference to Pontius Pilate presenting Jesus to the crowd after the scourging with the words: “Ecce homo” (Behold the Man)…

These events occurred on this day in 1917.

A sad morning as casualties were heavy and many men came in dreadfully wounded. One man was the bravest I ever met. He was in dreadful agony, for both legs had been blown off at the knee But never a complaint fell from his lips, even while they dressed his wounds, and he tried to make light of his injuries. Thank God, Father, he said, I am able to stick it out to the end. Is it not all for little Belgium? The Extreme Unction, as I have noticed time and again, eased his bodily pain. I am much better now and easier, God bless you, he said, as I left him to attend a dying man. He opened his eyes as I knelt beside him: Ah! Fr. Doyle, Fr. Doyle, he whispered faintly, and then motioned me to bend lower as if he had some message to give. As I did so, he put his two arms round my neck and kissed me. It was all the poor fellow could do to show his gratitude that he had not been left to die alone and that he would have the consolation of receiving the Last Sacraments before he went to God. Sitting a little way off I saw a hideous bleeding object, a man with his face smashed by a shell, with one if not both eyes torn out. He raised his head as I spoke. Is that the priest? Thank God, I am all right now. I took his blood-covered hands in mine as I searched his face for some whole spot on which to anoint him. I think I know better now why Pilate said Behold the Man when he showed our Lord to the people.

In the afternoon, while going my rounds, I was forced to take shelter in the dug-out of a young officer belonging to another regiment. For nearly two hours I was a prisoner and found out he was a Catholic from Dublin, and had been married just a month. Was this a chance visit, or did God send me there to prepare him for death, for I had not long left the spot when a shell burst and killed him? I carried his body out the next day and buried him in a shell hole, and once again I blessed that protecting Hand which had shielded me from his fate.

That night we moved head quarters and aid-post to a more advanced position, a strong concrete emplacement, but a splendid target for the German gunners. For the forty- eight hours we were there they hammered us almost constantly day and night till I thought our last hour had come. There we lived with a foot, sometimes more, of water on the floor, pretty well soaked through, for it was raining hard at times. Sleep was almost impossible – fifty shells a minute made some noise and to venture out without necessity was foolishness. We were well provided with tinned food, and a spirit lamp for making hot tea, so that we were not too badly off, and rather enjoyed hearing the German shells hopping off the roof or bursting on the walls of their own strong fort.

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Fr Willie Doyle SJ

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Books about Fr Doyle

On sale now - click image to purchase On sale now! Click book cover.Click here to buy O'Rahilly's classic biography of Fr DoyleChildren's book about Fr DoyleClick here to buy Carole Hope's new biography of Fr Doyle, with special focus on World War 1.Click here to buy the new CTS booklet on Fr Doyle by K.V. Turley.Click here to buy Trench Priest, a 168 page magazine about Fr Doyle

Fr Doyle’s famous booklet Vocations

The Irish involvement in WW1

Book about the Irish involvement in WW1

EWTN Live interview about Fr Doyle

EWTN Life on the Rock interview about Fr Doyle

EWTN Bookmark interview about Fr Doyle

Fr Doyle on Rome Reports

Radio interview about Fr Doyle

Video tribute to Fr Doyle

Prayer (For Private Use Only)

O Jesus, who has given us the example of Your servant, Father William Doyle, graciously grant us the favours we ask You through his intercession...[Make petition.]

Teach us to imitate his love for You, his heroic devotion to Your service, his zeal for repairing the outrages done to Your glory and for the salvation of souls. Hear our prayer and show us the credit he now enjoys in heaven so that we may soon be able to venerate him in public worship."

Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be

About this blog

This blog seeks to share some daily reflections from the writings of the heroic Jesuit "martyr" Fr Willie Doyle. My hope is that more people can come to know, and learn from, this remarkable man.

A more complete explanation of this blog can be found by clicking on Why This Blog? at the top of the page.

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Prayer for Priests by Fr Doyle

O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon Thy priests. It is both their glory and their duty to become victims, to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be often the objects of distrust, injustice, and persecution.

The words they say every day at the altar, "This is my Body, this is my Blood," grant them to apply to themselves: "I am no longer myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and wine, a substance no longer itself, but by consecration another."

O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests. I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose touch is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking trivialities.

Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty functions, let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist, accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them to carry with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of tomorrow, and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts, to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.

Declaration

In obedience to the decree of Pope Urban VIII, all
that all that is written on this site about Fr. Doyle has no other force or credit than such as is grounded on human authority. Hence no expression or statement is intended to assume the approbation or anticipate the decision of the Church.